


The sky was darker once

by bacchantetriste



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Identity Reveal, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shapeshifting, Zeus as Artemis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 20:05:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19325164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchantetriste/pseuds/bacchantetriste
Summary: “Look at me!” He seized her jaw so that she had to stare up at him. He had become completely himself, a striking bearded man with cruel eyes. She could see some resemblance to Artemis in his face and grey eyes, and she hated him for it.“Why do you fear me? Ask yourself, why do you fear your own destiny? Isn’t it more natural this way? Isn’t this how it is supposed to be? Man with woman?”This is a story about a bear.





	The sky was darker once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eione](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eione/gifts).



The sky was darker once, many years ago, so she did not notice the boy watching her. She lay on her side, gently mouthing the bloody and mottled corpse of a young elk. She had lain here for days, still drowsy from hibernation, alternating between eating her first kill, and sleeping over it. When she had finished eating, she snorted loudly, lazily rolled over onto her belly, curled her paws under her large snout, and closed her eyes. 

All the while, the boy watched her, absentmindedly thumbing the tip of a stone arrowhead. He was beautiful and slender, and his burning eyes were as dark as obsidian. A pensive expression fell across his face as he studied her, but then he thought of killing her, and his soft face became disfigured with lust. 

He suddenly felt a hand clasp his shoulder. 

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” said a gruff voice. 

The boy looked back at the older man who had crouched down in the bushes beside him and grinned. 

“I want her,” he whispered, nodding towards the bear. 

“Then you must kill her,” whispered the elder man. He was tall and dressed as a seasoned hunter, wrapped up to the neck in wolf fur. He wore a hunting knife with a golden hilt in a belt decorated with glowing jewels. He had a thick dark beard, and he wore his hair long, and tied back into braids. 

The boy reached for the bow at his side, but the hunter stopped him, with a touch. 

“Not now, Arcas,” he said to the boy. “Wait until the fall, when she is fat-bellied and drunk on berries. Then we will feast on her, for your coming-of-age.”

Arcas shrugged, notched his arrow, and shot in her direction. He missed his mark, as he had intended. The bear rustled her thick neck, looked up at him, and became fearful. She snorted loudly, threw her weight into her strides, and lumbered deeper into the forest. 

_Flee now. Live for one last summer and feast on all of the fruits and animals of the earth. Then when autumn comes, I will find you._

✢

Callisto sat at the water’s edge, and stroked the soft grasses between her fingers. Her thighs ached and her lungs burned from exhaustion. The other girls had moved on, far ahead of her. She thought about Artemis running away with the others, touching and kissing their soft skin, and embracing their lithe pale bodies. 

Why am I not beautiful, like the ones who smile at her when she brings their white fingers to her lips? Why can’t I run and dance and shoot arrows like them? Why must I sit here alone? Never to be touched? 

She lived in the most brilliant green paradise, and yet all that she could feel was anger and pain. She was always met with the same words written in the water, on the trees, and in the eyes of all the wild beasts of the forest. 

_I will never love you._

The wind picked up, and the clouds grow thicker over the water. Droplets of rain began to fall onto her bare feet and arms. Still, the sun shone a brilliant heat onto her skin. 

She closed her eyes. Suddenly, she felt warm hands pressed against her face.

“Swim with me,” said Artemis. 

Callisto dared not even believe that it was she who stroked her cheeks and smiled down at her. She could not tolerate being alone with Artemis . . . to look only at her, to be under the gaze of her elusive grey eyes. A painful energy bubbled in her stomach. She was suddenly aware of her hands, her posture, her gaze. Darkness swam across her vision like birds across the sky at dusk. Her mouth grew dry. She thought that she might faint. 

“Do you hate me, Callisto? You always look at me so strangely.”

_Why do you always stare at her? You were aroused, just like a man._

This was what the other girls had always told her. She wanted to retreat inside herself. She did not deserve to be in the presence of the Goddess, because she could not prevent herself from watching her with impure and lustful eyes. 

_She’s made of moonlight, not flesh. How could she fall in love with someone like me?_

“You don’t want to say anything?” said Artemis. “But you know that I can read your thoughts, my dear.”

Callisto’s heart pounded. Her body betrayed itself. Her thoughts cried out before she could repress them.

_I hate your brilliance, because when I am with you I feel so incredibly alive. Compared to you I am clumsy and innocent, but when I am with you, I believe that I could be beautiful and strong. When I am with you, I believe that you could love me. But your love is only for girls with sweet smiles and bright hair and stars in their eyes. And they are the ones who are the most false! They speak empty flattery with their beautiful mouths, while I love you more than the world itself, but I cannot confess my love because I can only express it with pathetic words. If only my love for you could flow off of my tongue like music._

“You’re in love with me! Confess it!” cried Artemis. 

She ran from Artemis in shame, but she soon felt a terrible tingling in her thigh, as if an animal had bitten her. Her legs collapsed underneath her. She saw that Artemis had shot an arrow deep into the flesh of her thigh. 

“Yes, I love you!” she said bitterly, “Does it really shock you that you are loved, Goddess? I loved you when I only knew your name, and heard of the stories of your bravery . . . I grew to love you more and more each day. In my fantasies you were soft and kind, but you have been so cruel to me. Yet how can I deny it? To lie to you now, when you have always been the most unattainable beautiful perfect creature in this world to me, would be the greatest perversion. Oh Artemis, every particle of blood that you have spilled is in love with you. I exist to love you, and if you had shot me through the heart and killed me, it would have been my greatest triumph!” 

Artemis laughed and pressed her lips to Callisto’s wound, so that it closed over completely, without a hint of a scar. 

_She can heal me with a touch . . . but I want the blood to remain._

✢

Arcas remained with the hunter all summer. They chased after all the animals of the earth and sky; wild boar, deer, rabbits, birds. As summer faded, they slept together for warmth. The hunter wrapped his strong arms around him, and pressed him to his breast. 

“Why do you hunt?” Arcas would ask. And the hunter’s heartbeat answered him. 

_Because they are. Because I want. Because._

Arcas began to dream of the bear. He sometimes felt her close to him in the dark night. He was incensed with a desire to approach her, but she always ran from him, as swift and as brutal as the wind.

One night, he woke to find that he was suddenly cold. He first thought that the hunter had left him, but then he heard a strange and tortured moan. He could not believe at first, that a living man had made such a noise. 

The hunter was kneeling on the dark rocks, his back turned from Arcas, and hands outstretched to the heavens. He cried out to the full moon that illuminated the dark sky.

“Release me from your enchantment! You, who have created the world! You, from whom all life flows, your honeyed breath, your sweet cunt, your eternal womb, all life comes from you. You inspire the love of all men!” 

Then, more darkly, he growled, “You, who have the power to entirely destroy me. Your deadly arrows pierce my heart. Why? Why? I loved you once, Goddess. But you would not have me. All because of some vow? Is that really why you rejected me? No! I will die if I cannot have you. You must kill me then, if you are to reject me!”

The howls of rage and pain continued. Arcas packed up his belongings and left the camp. 

_I once hoped that he was my father. Now I know that he is not. There is a weakness in him. I’ll never be weak like him._

✢

“How beautiful we are,” Artemis said. She brushed the water with her hands. A thousand reflections of their embracing bodies swirled around them. Artemis stared not at Callisto, but at the copies of herself in the water. She was beautiful, muscular, firm, like a living sculpture, her skin so smooth and golden.

“You wonder why I run from you. Is it not because we are the same? We have the same weaknesses. The same rare beauty. Look at us, Callisto! Are we not the same and the most beautiful?” 

_How could she not become entranced by her own reflection? Yet, I look beautiful too when I am with her. I was terrified to see the image of myself but our bodies fit together so perfectly._

The water subsided, lapping at their feat. Artemis pushed Callisto up onto the grassy shore, and arranged her on her lap. She bent over and kissed her on the lips.

“I love you, Callisto. I love you because you are weak, because you are fragile, because you are mortal . . . because you are completely innocent of all things. That is why you are beautiful. But why won’t you open your mouth?” Artemis pulled Callisto’s face towards her, and kissed her more forcefully, pressing her tongue against her lips. Her hands stroked up and down her body. She pushed Callisto’s arms away from her chest, and squeezed her soft breasts. Everything was like a dream, glistening and strange.

Her head fell against Callisto’s breast. She sucked heavy kisses over the exposed flesh, from the warm flesh under her breasts, up to her collarbone. She sucked Callisto’s nipples gently, eliciting the most beautiful sensations, until Callisto shook with pleasure in her arms. Then she playfully bit down with her white teeth. Callisto’s breath quickened. Her breasts felt swollen and heavy. She looked down and saw that her breasts were covered with red welts from the heavy kisses. Artemis parted her legs, and pressed her fingers against her wet folds. 

“Am I hurting you?”

_No, you could never hurt me. I love you._

“Good. Oh Callisto, I cannot be gentle when I burn with lust for you!” 

She wrapped her legs around Callisto. 

“I always wondered what this would feel like.” 

She thrust against her thigh. 

No, it’s not good,” she said bitterly. “Can’t you see that it’s all wrong? But you are so innocent. You’ve never even been touched before.” 

She pulled Callisto’s hand down and made her stroke her clitoris. 

“Good girl. You don’t think that I’m too big do you? You’re making me so swollen.” 

Her hand clasped around Callisto’s throat, and she rutted against her entrance. The head of her clitoris had swollen so large that she managed to thrust it inside of her.

Callisto looked down, and saw that the hand pressed to her throat was large and veiny with knuckles covered in thick dark hair. She tried to cry out, but the hand clasped even tighter around her throat, choking her. 

“You should have known that I wasn’t her,” laughed Artemis in a deep masculine voice. “She doesn’t love you and never will. Why would she love a girl? She loves a hunter, a boy as beautiful and as brave as a lion. She claims to hate him now, but one day she will welcome him into her bed.”

The stranger rolled his hips deeper into Callisto, and she felt a sharp stinging pain, as if thousands of knives were tearing her insides open. When she looked at him head on, he still resembled Artemis, but wherever she did not focus, the illusion faded. Artemis’s neck was thick, and bulging with veins. Her arms were hard and muscular. Her hips narrowed. Her skin felt rough to the touch. 

“What? You were so happy before. You don’t like me this way? It’s so hard to keep up this illusion when your cunt is so warm and wet,” the stranger growled. His cock made a loud wet squishing sound as he thrust in and out of her. 

“Who are you?” 

“I am your first vivid memory of the world. I am the sunrise, and this is first time that you’ve beheld the sun!”

She wept with rage. 

“Look at me!” He seized her jaw so that she had to stare up at him. He had become completely himself, a striking bearded man with cruel eyes. She could see some resemblance to Artemis in his face and grey eyes, and she hated him for it. 

“Why do you fear me? Ask yourself, why do you fear your own destiny? Isn’t it more natural this way? Isn’t this how it is supposed to be? Man with woman?” 

His cock swelled inside of her as he fucked her. His balls slapped against her forcefully. She looked down and saw that his cock resembled that of a horse. Her cunt was stretched to a horrifying size to accommodate him. She was dripping with hot wet blood that fell onto his balls, which were swollen to the size of bull’s balls. She cried out brokenly. 

“Did you really think that you could live in this sacred forest forever and remain unchanged? Did you really believe that there could be a place where no tree has ever felt an axe, no field a plough, no nymph a man? All women must be broken in, and all men will be their breakers.” 

He squeezed and twisted her breasts. He bit down on her raw nipples, so that twin rivers of blood fell down her soft curves and belly. Then he changed his voice again so that he sounded like Artemis, and tempted her further. He whispered the most endearing confessions of love. He knew that he had made her slick and wet, and then he laughed at her and bit down on her ears.

“You must accept my power. I am the life-force that drives all actions. I am the feeling within you that sparks the lust you feel towards women. I represent your thirst to conquer them. I am the god of the blind need that spurs all life into being. I am the source of all creation.” 

He fucked her until she was lifeless in his arms. 

When she woke, she found herself lying at the edge of the lake. The waters were thick with white foam crusted with pale rust. She waded out into the water, and washed away the froth from the insides of her thighs. 

✢

Arcas ran until the hunter’s painful cries were masked by the wind. Then he ran for himself, because he enjoyed how the world turned under his feet, and how the only sound that he could hear was the rasp of his tired breath. He began to sense that she was running ahead of him. He followed her under the dark sky. Sometimes she seemed as swift and as frightful as an elk. Other times, he imagined that she was a terrible monster that could swallow him whole. 

At times, there were others who joined him in the hunt. They ran together across a great bridge over the cold ocean. He sensed that the hunter had followed him as well. Sometimes he tuned back and saw his knife hilt glowing in the moonlight. But he was alone when he found her, at the edge of a high cliff, where a great waterfall spilled over the edge of the world into the abyss. 

She knew that she was trapped. She pawed at the ground, and roared. Her breath emitted a terrifying mist into the cold air. Then, she snarled and swung her heavy body around to swipe at him. He dodged her claws, and thrust his spear into her soft belly. 

She bleated with rage. She circled him, and made to charge at him. He thrust his spear against her with deadly precision, causing her to veer off angrily, crying out in pain. Again and again she made to attack him, and each time he deflected her blows, and inflicted damage to her underbelly. 

Dark blood matted her thick fur, and began to drip down her onto the leaves under her paws. She sighed and turned her back to him in defeat. He watched as she lumbered to the edge of the cliff, and raised her shaggy head up towards the dark sky, staring at the full moon, as if she knew it would be for the last time. She appeared so innocent and human, that he let his spear fell from his hands. 

She turned around again, and recognized him. He ran to her and nipped at her muzzle playfully. She closed her eyes lazily and licked him. He chattered back at her. His fur was a radiant gold, and his eyes glowed like bright stars. Then, with a natural impulse known only to animals, she lumbered towards the edge of the cliff and leapt into the sky. He followed her. 

When the hunter arrived, the cliff was empty. His dogs paced at the edge, where the smell of bear blood lingered, and howled. He studied the red leaves that covered the ground and looked up to the sky, illuminated by strange bright stars that he had never seen before. 

He stood there, at the edge of the world, until a beautiful goddess appeared and snaked her white arms around him.


End file.
